saveyourassetsfirst3 |
- WATCH: Silver – Achilles' Heel Of The Entire System
- Investing During Major Bear Markets
- Analyzing Tuesday's Noteworthy Insider Trades
- Silver: The Most Manipulated Market in the World
- Iran Says "Gold Is Money"
- Gold is Making a Very Important Bottom
- Sirius XM: Hope Is Not Good Enough
- China Botanic Pharmaceutical Deserves A Closer Look
- FSN Interview: Keep Your Friends Close and Your Gold Closer
- Gold Market Sentiment Very Poor Despite Strong Fundamentals
- India Markets Wednesday Wrap-Up: Banks And IT Lead The Way
- Dark Clouds for Gold Seem to Have Been Dispersed
- Ben Rattles Ron's Gilded Cage
- Gold Sentiment Poor Despite Strong Fundamentals
- Precious Metals Prices Downtrend Threatens Support
- Riverstone Intersects 15.88 g/t Au Over 10 Metres at the Kao Deposit
- Fed trapped between a rock and a hard place
- Links 3/21/12
- John Hathaway: Gold Making an Important Bottom
- Too bad South Africa won't help break the gold price suppression scheme
- With college kids, Bernanke gets away with dissing gold
- David Tice: Gold Will Surge To $2,500 And The S&P 500 Will Plunge To 1,000
- Charles Kadlec: The rising price of the falling dollar
- Great Grandpa And His Silver Dollars
- LISTEN: One Hour with Lindsey Williams
- Silver Update: “Silver Doctors”
- Silver: Banging the Close of the Comex Session
- Trading Comments, 21 March 2012 (posted 009h45 CET):
- The U.S. Dollar & Oil Hold Clues About the Future
- Have Gold, Silver Entered a Bear Market?
| WATCH: Silver – Achilles' Heel Of The Entire System Posted: 21 Mar 2012 04:32 AM PDT David Morgan references BrotherJohnF when he discusses silver, as the bullet that will kill the fractional vampires. from silverguru : ~TVR |
| Investing During Major Bear Markets Posted: 21 Mar 2012 04:30 AM PDT By Financial Sense: By Jim Puplava While numerous events portend future global and economic turmoil, successful investing warrants a close examination of the dramatic effects central bank intervention and money-printing have on financial assets in the midst of major bear markets. We're less than one year away from December 21, 2012, the date that the ancient Mayan calendar allegedly marks as the end of an era and, in some investors' minds, the collapse of society as we know it. Although not quite apocalyptic, Wall Street soothsayers are also less than optimistic about the future state of the market. Forecasts made at the beginning of the year were certainly more bearish this year than any time I can remember. The consensus is far more downbeat with Morgan Stanley's Adam Parker predicting a year-end close of 1,167 for the S&P 500. Even Goldman Sach's forecasts for 2012 were more subdued than usual, calling for a Complete Story » |
| Analyzing Tuesday's Noteworthy Insider Trades Posted: 21 Mar 2012 03:59 AM PDT By Ganaxi Small Cap Movers: We present here two noteworthy buys and 14 noteworthy sells from Tuesday's (March 20th, 2012) SEC Form 4 (insider trading) filings, as part of our daily and weekly coverage of insider trades. These were selected by a review of over 305 separate SEC Form 4 transactions filed by insiders on Tuesday. The filings are noteworthy based on the dollar amount sold, the number of insiders buying or selling, and based on whether the overall buying or selling represents a strong pick-up based on historical buying and selling in the stock (for more information on how to interpret insider trades, please refer to the end of this article): TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. (AMTD): AMTD is a provider of securities brokerage services and technology-based financial services to retail investors, traders and independent registered investment advisors in the U.S. On Tuesday, Director Joseph Moglia filed SEC Form 4 indicating that he exercised options Complete Story » |
| Silver: The Most Manipulated Market in the World Posted: 21 Mar 2012 03:29 AM PDT Post courtesy of Vin Maru, editor of TDV Golden Trader, and a financial libertarian and hard money advocate with over 15 years of experience as a self- taught private investor and analyst.
Forget about "Give me a break", it seems like you can't even buy a break with precious metals this past week. The metals still trended down as I suspected they would and even went a little lower than my down side possibility with gold. The recent activity around precious metals and the quick draw down days where the metals get hit hard does reek of manipulation and intervention. I have been asked many times in the past about manipulation in precious metals and the price action we see around key price levels. I feel most markets are manipulated in one way or another and precious metals are no different. In fact silver is probably the most manipulated market in the world, I really can't think of any other market that is so easily manipulated. In a market that has approximately 30 million ounces of silver in warehouses available for delivery, there are days such as February 29 where you can have 255M traded in hours (the total for the day was estimated at over 500M oz traded). Such a concentration of positions by a few key players can and will move price to a key level, at which point computer trading can further extend the move which is what most likely happened on February 29th of this year. Here is some information and perspective on how much silver was sold in the paper market during that one day:
So do I believe that the silver market is manipulated? When you have such a concentration of selling on one side by a few sources, unlimited amounts of funds and knowledge of sell trigger points, any market could easily be manipulated. On that day alone, you had paper pushers selling almost one third of a year's production in a matter of hours. This selling was done by a few commercial firms that are known to have the highest short concentrated position of any market. Common sense tells me price manipulation is possible when you can sell endless amounts of paper silver in a matter of hours. A Price drop of several dollars is easily achievable once stop loss triggers get taken out to the downside. When you have a paper market which has no real bearing on the physical market or accountability for delivery, then anything is possible in terms of price. So my answer is YES, the silver market can easily be manipulated and most likely is, unfortunately there is no way that we can prove it. I am not the only one to think so; you may want to listen to some great audio interviews on Financial Sense about silver manipulation. Jim Puplava interviews Ted Butler, David Morgan and Eric Sprott about their views regarding the silver market manipulation and getting their response to CFTC's Commissioner Bart Chilton's take on the silver market. Even a commissioner from the CFTC believes that manipulation is possible, but no one is doing anything about regulating position limits in the silver market. It seems like the concentration of silver shorts by a few commercials will be overlooked again and the regulators will not get involved in enforcing the rules on position limits by the shorts. So if there was manipulation, the regulators are not doing their job in creating an equal and transparent market, they are allowing the manipulation to happen. Here's the irony I find in the whole situation about manipulation and involvement by regulators. They are currently overlooking this manipulation in the silver market as long as it's on the short side and is done by their paymasters, the bankers. Back in the 1970's, the Hunt brothers wanted to protect their wealth and decided to take delivery of as much silver (real money) as possible. At the time, the regulators decided that the brothers were manipulating the silver market to the upside and forced them out of their long side contracts which stood for delivery by changing the rules and not allowing delivery of the physical. Here is a great video on YouTube called SBSS 15 The Real Hunt Story Part 1, which tells the story on why the Hunt brothers wanted to protect their wealth using silver. Now that the silver manipulation is on the short side by bankers and government, everything is overlooked and will not be regulated. Unfortunately this is the market we are dealing with so when it comes to paper silver trading, the paper pushers will get their way and always profit at someone else's loss. Taking a look at the one year silver chart below, you can clearly see the big draw down days come very quickly. It takes a while for price to build a base and move higher, usually a few weeks to several months before we see significant price advances. Price drops seem to come very quickly at key price intervals, only taking days to give back most of the price gains which took months to advance. |
| Posted: 21 Mar 2012 03:24 AM PDT |
| Gold is Making a Very Important Bottom Posted: 21 Mar 2012 03:07 AM PDT Today four decade veteran John Hathaway, told King World News that the gold market is making a very important bottom here. |
| Sirius XM: Hope Is Not Good Enough Posted: 21 Mar 2012 03:00 AM PDT By Cameron Kaine: In Tuesday's episode of "All My SIRI Children" we touched upon some realities of Sirius XM (SIRI) and in particular its outlook in three years as it relates to market saturation. Based on the comments, some readers convinced me that they indeed disliked the article. However, some failed failed in their attempt to persuade me that I was wrong. Instead, the discussion evolved around why is Cameron doing his so called "bashing" of Sirius every day? Instead, I would much prefer to call it "offering a different perspective." Because as I noted previously, the ratio of pumping articles with little to no support of what is being spewed have reached what I consider an embarrassing level. Not even better than average Readers being sold on how the stock is going to go to $X dollar amount, with no road map on how it will get there except - "let's hope Complete Story » |
| China Botanic Pharmaceutical Deserves A Closer Look Posted: 21 Mar 2012 02:55 AM PDT By Dutch Trader: One of my first articles on Seeking Alpha was A Closer Look at Renhuang Pharmaceuticals, and back then the stock was around $1.86. China Botanic Pharmaceutical (CBP), as the company is now known, currently trades around $0.80, about a dollar less than in October 2010. Revenues and profit have risen, but the stock price has been hard hit by the turmoil in the China space. Background: Investment thesis Although modern medicine is now established in Asia, traditional medicine also plays a big role in people's healthcare. Traditional medicine - a system of ancient medical practice that differs in substance, methodology and philosophy to modern medicine - plays an important role in health maintenance for the peoples of Asia, and is becoming more frequently used in countries in the West. Within Asia, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is the medicinal system with the longest history. TCM was developed through thousands of years Complete Story » |
| FSN Interview: Keep Your Friends Close and Your Gold Closer Posted: 21 Mar 2012 02:40 AM PDT Andy Hoffman |
| Gold Market Sentiment Very Poor Despite Strong Fundamentals Posted: 21 Mar 2012 02:37 AM PDT gold.ie |
| India Markets Wednesday Wrap-Up: Banks And IT Lead The Way Posted: 21 Mar 2012 02:33 AM PDT By Equitymaster: The buying momentum remained undisturbed right through the close today. Consequently, indices in the Indian stock markets ended the session with some very strong gains. While Sensex closed higher by around 285 points (up 1.65%), gains on the NSE-Nifty came in at around 90 points. BSE Mid cap and BSE Small cap indices also performed mostly in line with their large cap counterparts. Only one stock went into the negative on the BSE-Sensex for every five that went in the positive. Markets across Asia closed with a positive bias today with Europe too trading mostly in the positive currently. The rupee was trading at Rs 50.5 to the dollar at the time of writing. Today's gains come against a backdrop of poor showing in the past few trading sessions. However, besides bargain hunting what also led to the buoyant mood was the feeling that the selling in the banking space Complete Story » |
| Dark Clouds for Gold Seem to Have Been Dispersed Posted: 21 Mar 2012 02:00 AM PDT SunshineProfits |
| Posted: 21 Mar 2012 01:40 AM PDT Gold prices fell towards the $1,645 level at the opening of the midweek session in New York as the US dollar climbed slightly on the trade-weighted index. The initial action was rather subdued but speculators were perhaps justifiably skittish. |
| Gold Sentiment Poor Despite Strong Fundamentals Posted: 21 Mar 2012 01:27 AM PDT Still stubbornly high oil prices are bullish for gold but have not led to higher gold prices so far. Risk appetite remains high as seen in equity indices near record highs and gold more than 15% below its recent nominal record high. |
| Precious Metals Prices Downtrend Threatens Support Posted: 21 Mar 2012 01:25 AM PDT Gold prices climbed to $1,660 per ounce Wednesday morning in London – in line with where they ended last week – before drifting lower ahead of US open, while stock, commodity and government bond prices were broadly unchanged. |
| Riverstone Intersects 15.88 g/t Au Over 10 Metres at the Kao Deposit Posted: 21 Mar 2012 12:04 AM PDT VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, Mar 21, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Riverstone Resources Inc. (tsx:RVS.V) (otcqx:RVREF)(frankfurt:3RV) ("Riverstone" or the "Company") is pleased to report results from eleven diamond drill holes on the 100% owned Kao Deposit, which forms part of the Company's flagship Karma Gold Project in Burkina Faso, West Africa. These holes are part of a program of core drilling designed to confirm and extend the Kao Deposit mineralization along strike and down dip, and upgrade the inferred resources to the indicated category (see map on website for the location of the holes: http://www.riverstoneresources.com/i/pdf/120319-091112_Kao_Plan.pdf ). Significant assay intervals in these core holes are as follows: Mineralization at Kao has been extended by 100 metres to the north to an overall strike length in excess of 1,000 metres north-south and in excess of 900 metres down-dip to the east. The Kao Deposit is open to the north-east, to the west and to the south. Several satellite zones remain to be drill tested; drilling continues at Kao, with two RC and two core rigs active. "We are very excited about intersecting high grade gold over significant widths plus extending the mineralized zone to the north," commented Dwayne L. Melrose, President and COO of Riverstone. "These results show significant upside potential for the Kao Deposit and Riverstone will continue to follow up these results with more drilling along strike, which will allow for potential up-grading of the future resource model." – Riverstone Resources press release continues at the link below. Source: Riverstone Resources via MarketWatch GGR Comment: We are expecting a series of press releases from a considerable amount of drilling at the Karma project just ahead. The higher grade intercepts over good widths in this press release are interesting and encouraging to us. Riverstone has completed tens of thousands of meters of new successful drilling since the cutoff for the last 43-101 resource estimate, which showed a growing gold resource of about 2.7 million ounces in all categories. Disclosure: Riverstone Resources is a Vulture Bargain Candidate of Interest (VBCI) and is our fully fledged Vulture Bargain #3. Members of the GGR team are actively accumulating shares of RVS.V or RVREF and continue to hold a speculative long position in the company. |
| Fed trapped between a rock and a hard place Posted: 20 Mar 2012 10:30 PM PDT The "China slowdown" meme dominated the economic news yesterday, leading to a sell-off in commodities and precious metals. The silver price in particular suffered - the metal ... |
| Posted: 20 Mar 2012 09:55 PM PDT More internet woes. I think the blog gods want me to stay chained to my desk in New York. Lambert was a good sport and pitched in. Spring Arrives with Equinox Tuesday, Earliest in More Than a Century Scientific American $1.5 billion: The cost of cutting London-Toyko latency by 60ms ExtremeTech. And guess who the big beneficiaries are? Algos. Job seekers getting asked for Facebook passwords Associated Press (hat tip reader Martha R) Generic Drugs Prove Resistant to Damage Suits New York Times EU defies carbon trade war threats Financial Times How Much Longer Can Transaction Tax Be Delayed? Der Spiegel IMF sees $160 oil risk despite Libyan boost Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph Conflict in Syria is a Civil War Real News Network U.S. Exempts Japan, 10 EU Nations From Iran Oil Sanctions Bloomberg (hat tip Joe Costello) Philippines says no to drone strikes Bangkok Post US Lawmakers Reject Pakistani Calls to End Drone Strikes VOA The Japan debt disaster and China's (non)rebalancing Michael Pettis A rumour concerning €1 trillion in German bad debt Golem XIV Santorum's blunt talk is proving troublesome Washington Post. You think? Just $47B from Buffett rule tax on rich Associated Press. Over 11 years. Masters of finance and war will fall together Bangkok Post (hat tip reader furzy mouse) "Too Smart to Fail" Thomas Frank, The Baffler (hat tip reader Mark S) Central banks and gold puzzles VoxEU. It basically says gold is a status symbol for central banks. Mitt Romney declares victory in Illinois Chicago Tribune Health Insurers: We'll Deny Coverage for Pre-Existing Conditions if Health Mandate Is Repealed Truthout (hat tip reader 1 SK). There is more to this than meets the eye. First, insurers really want Obamacare, since it fattens their bottom lines by bringing more people into the pool and allowing them margins wider than they enjoy now. Second, Obamacare preserves the "fraud" out for coverage, which insurers use now to deny coverage for costly procedures, and "fraud" includes not telling the insurer about pre-existing conditions, even super trivial ones. Sources of health system (in)efficiency, in one chart The Incidental Economist (hat tip reader 1 SK) The Summers of Our Discontent Forget Larry (hat tip reader 1 SK) JOBS Bill Vote Postponed in Senate New York Times Fed may fine SunTrust, other banks over foreclosure issues AJC. Even if this takes place, it will be more regulatory theater. Inequality Undermines Democracy New York Times Antidote du jour:
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| John Hathaway: Gold Making an Important Bottom Posted: 20 Mar 2012 09:08 PM PDT ¤ Yesterday in Gold and SilverWith the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, the gold price was under pressure right from mid-morning trading in the Far East yesterday morning...and it wasn't until about five minutes after Comex trading began in New York yesterday morning, that the bottom was in. Kitco reported the low as $1,640.50 spot...down twenty-three bucks from Monday's close. From that low, the subsequent rally got cut off at the knees just minutes after the London close, which came at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time. From there it more or less traded sideways until about fifteen minutes before the Comex close...and then gold got dropped another nine bucks. From that low, gold rallied about six dollars into the close of electronic trading. Gold closed at $1,650.80 spot...down $12.70 from Monday. Considering the size of the sell-off, I was surprised that net volume wasn't higher. The CME reported it as 126,000 contracts.
Silver's price path was very similar but, as you have come to expect, 'da boyz' really hit it pretty good...especially after the London close...and then the take-down in the last fifteen minutes of Comex trading was quite breathtaking...and on monster volume to boot. The actual low for silver [$31.67 spot] came about ten minutes after the Comex close. From there, silver rallied back over 50 cents into the close of the New York Access Market. From the close on Monday, to the absolute low at 1:40 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday afternoon, silver was down $1.25...an intraday swing of 3.8%. Of course there was nothing in the real world of supply and demand that caused this. It was only JPMorgan et al doing what they do in the Comex futures market. Since they hold a short-side corner on the market, they can pretty much set the price wherever they want to...and they do. Silver closed at $32.16 spot...down 76 cents on the day. Like gold, silver's net volume wasn't overly heavy, either...about 34,000 contracts. About 10% of that came in the last fifteen minutes of the Comex trading session.
The dollar index didn't do much of anything until shortly after London opened. Then a 35 basis point rally commenced that ended at precisely 8:00 a.m. in New York. During the next two hours of trading, the dollar index crashed back within a handful of basis points from its London open starting point...and the decline ended at precisely 10:00 a.m. in New York. How's that for free market forces at work? From that 10:00 a.m. low, the dollar index added on about ten basis points...and by the close of trading at 5:15 p.m. Eastern, the dollar index showed a net gain of less than 20 basis points. You will carefully note that despite the fact that dollar didn't do much on a net basis, neither gold nor silver were allowed to gain back all their losses on the day, but would have if not-for-profit sellers hadn't shown up shortly after 11:00 a.m. and 1:15 p.m.
The gold stocks gapped down at the open, with the low coming about 9:45 a.m...and from there it was onward and ever upward. I was amazed to see the HUI finish up on the day...rising 3.0% off it's 9:45 a.m. low. I'm always of two minds when I see this sort of counterintuitive share price action to the upside when the metals themselves are down. The perma-bull in me says that insiders are buying this dip because the precious metals are going to blast off from here...and they know that and what to make some big bucks. The 'born in Missouri' part of me says that 'da boyz' are loading the boat with these beaten-down shares to sell into any forthcoming rally to keep the HUI from getting out of hand to the upside. Up until Monday the HUI was down seven days in a row, even though gold and silver prices were up on Thursday, Friday...and Monday. Why was that? After watching the gold market very closely for twelve years, I've come to the above-mentioned conclusion...and so have many others, of which John Embry is one. Year-to-date the HUI is down about 4.5%...even though the gold price is up 5.6%. This should not be...and wasn't up until the drive-by shooting on February 29th. The HUI closed at 476.33...up 0.54% on the day.
The silver shares finished mixed as well...and Nick Laird's Silver Sentiment Index closed up 0.15%. Nick just informed me that even though silver [the metal] is up 15.4% so far this year...the SSI is actually down 3.7%. And the day before the drive-by shooting on February 29th, the SSI was up 15.8% on the year, as silver was up about 33% year-to-date on the February 28th.
(Click on image to enlarge) I suppose that with the lousy price action, that a lot of silver and gold stockholders have decided to just throw in the towel and say to hell with it. They may, or may not, be back...and if they are back, it won't be until the shares cost them a lot more than they just sold them for. The CME's Daily Delivery Report showed that only 14 gold contracts were posted for delivery tomorrow. The CME shows only a handful of gold contracts left open for March delivery...but 330 silver contracts are still open at the moment. They have to be either sold, rolled...or delivered into by next Friday. I have a hunch that all of those silver contracts will stand for delivery...and that Jefferies will be the big short/issuer on virtually all of it. Only 2,000 ounce of gold eagles, along with 15,000 silver eagles were reported sold by the U.S. Mint on Tuesday. The GLD ETF reported that an authorized participant withdrew 97,143 troy ounces of gold yesterday...and there were no reported changes in SLV. The Comex-approved depositories took in 315,817 troy ounces of silver on Monday...and shipped 339,882 ounces out the door. All of the activity was at Brink's Inc. The link to that action is here. I note that Endeavour Silver just came out with their 2011 year-end earnings...and imbedded in their press release was this little tidbit..."In Q4, 2011, Endeavour elected not to sell a significant portion of its metal production on the basis that the gold and silver prices were experiencing a major correction [This is the company's cute way of saying that they know the silver price is managed to the downside. - Ed] and the Company would be better served [by holding] the unsold metal in inventory until such time as the metal prices rebounded. Therefore the following year-end financial results do not reflect the sale of full 2011 metal production. Metal prices did rebound in Q1, 2012 and management subsequently sold most of the metal held in inventory at prices significantly higher than the December prices." "Metal held in inventory at 2011 year-end included 980,000 ounces (oz) silver and 5,400 oz gold, compared to 127,000 oz silver and 957 oz gold at 2010 year-end." I'd like to see them [and every other silver producer] hold onto a portion of their silver production until they break the back of this JPMorgan-sponsored silver price management scheme, but at least it's a move in the right direction. Maybe they [and others] will step up to the plate on the next Sprott PSLV offering, as that's the equivalent of taking silver off the market themselves. They all have the cash to make a huge difference it they decide to go that route. If they want to be beloved by us shareholders...the real owners of these companies...this is a path they could all choose. Endeavour Silver has found out just how profitable this can be in the short term...and their shareholders love them for it. A bigger win/win/win situation in the short, medium and long term for everyone, I cannot possibly imagine. I had several e-mails from reader Scott Pluschau yesterday about the silver price action...particularly the 'banging the close' feature at the end of Comex trading yesterday. A more text-book case of that could not be found anywhere. Scott's blog on this issue is a must read...and the graphs are worth the trip all by themselves. The link is here. Well, The Central Bank of the Russian Federation updated their website for February yesterday, just as I said they would. But I was surprised to see that instead of adding to their gold reserves, they actually sold 100,000 ounces in February...the first time they've done that since way back in 2008. I'm not sure what that means in the grand scheme of things. Here's Nick Laird's most excellent chart.
(Click on image to enlarge) Here's a graph that Washington state reader S.A. sent my way yesterday...and I have no idea what the source document was that he 'borrowed' it from. I'd say that the Golden State is in permanent state of financial and economic decline. Not good...but not a surprise, either.
I don't have a lot of stories today...and that suits me just fine. It remains to be seen just how much of this 'bang the close' volume in silver will be included in Friday's Commitment of Traders Report. Gold price suppression is so blatant now that things must be far worse than admitted, Embry says. Too bad South Africa won't help break the gold price suppression scheme. ¤ Critical ReadsSubscribeCharles Kadlec: The rising price of the falling dollarDo you know why oil and prices are moving sharply higher? Some blame the oil companies, charging they are manipulating prices. Others cite U.S. sanctions on Iran and the threat of a military encounter that would disrupt the flow of oil from the Middle East. Speculators too are blamed for ostensibly bidding up the price of oil. In the political arena, President Obama is taking credit for increased domestic oil production even as his critics point out the slow pace of drilling permits issued by his administration soon will hamper additional increases in the U.S. oil production. Yet the basic reason for higher energy prices is being overlooked, even though it is right before our eyes: Oil prices are up because the value of the dollar is down. This story was posted over a the forbes.com website on Monday...and I lifted it from a GATA release yesterday. The link is here.  IMF sees $160 oil risk despite Libyan boost: Ambrose Evans-PritchardLibya's oil exports have rebounded much faster than expected and will exceed pre-Arab Spring levels as soon as April, plugging a crucial gap in world crude supply as the Iranian crisis comes to the boil. Despite the soothing words from Mid-East suppliers, the global oil market remains stretched with OECD inventories lower than during the Arab Spring last year. Most analysts believe Saudi spare capacity is below the safety threshold of 2m b/dm, though Mr al-Naimi said the Kingdom still has a 2.5m cushion. Barclays Capital said it remained "sceptical" about the ability of Saudi Arabia to boost output much beyond 1m b/d quickly and on a sustained basis. It also doubted that Libya will come close to its new target given the depletion rate of aging oil fields and the country's "political backdrop". This story was posted over at the telegraph.co.uk website early yesterday evening local time...and it's Roy Stephens first [of six] offerings on the day. The link is here.  Millions of workers lose pension battle with governmentThe case relates to Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith's decision to use the consumer price index (CPI) instead of the normally faster-rising retail price index (RPI) to measure price increases influencing pension upgrades. The unions say the CPI route will see the value of pensions cut by up to 20pc over a normal retirement, costing every affected worker thousands of pounds. They accused the Government of unlawfully attempting to reduce pension costs in the battle to cut the UK's financial deficit. The change from RPI to CPI is expected to save almost £6bn a year by 2014. Get used to it, dear reader...there's no way that any world government can afford to pay all these ridiculous pensions that they've promised their citizens for the last 50-odd years. This is the first step down that road in Britain. It's Roy's second story of the day...and it, too, is from yesterday's edition of The Telegraph. The link is here.  Monti and the Millionaires: With Spring, a New Political Tenor Arrives in ItalyWhat's going on in Italy? The administration is popular, despite having not been elected. Elected political elites, on the other hand, have little power. Under recently appointed Prime Minister Mario Monti; the tenor of Italian politics has improved considerably. The question is how long the experiment can last. When it comes to labor laws, even the toughest Italian reformers can lose their courage. For decades the government has tried to change them, but issues like easing stringent legislation that makes it difficult to fire workers hardly lend themselves to fame and honor in Rome. The opposition from the left-wing camp is simply too great. But now, a decade after Monti's predecessor Silvio Berlusconi backed down in the face of protests, the overhaul of labor laws is back on Italy's political agenda. Monti is conducting talks this week with labor unions and workers. And as with previous rounds of labor market discussions, the issue of loosening employment protection laws will be a key sticking point. This interesting story showed up on the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and is Roy Stephens' third offering of the day. The link is here.  JPMorgan Shuts Down The Account Of The Vatican Bank Due To Lack Of TransparencyJPMorgan Chase's Milan branch is shutting down the Vatican bank's account due to concerns about a lack of transparency, Reuters reported citing Italian newspapers. The Vatican bank, also known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), is having its account phased out and closed by March 30. That's because it apparently "failed to provide sufficient information on money transfers," Reuters reported citing media reports. This 2-paragraph Reuters story showed up on the businessinsider.com website yesterday...and the first one through the door with it was reader Lou Horner. You've already read the entire story, but the link to the hard copy is here.  Bundesbank Official on ECB Cash Injection: 'We Have to Keep a Watchful Eye on the Money'The euro zone's central banks have flooded the markets with cheap money in a bid to fight the financial crisis. In a SPIEGEL ONLINE interview, Joachim Nagel, a member of the board of Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank, explains why the banks have to be weaned off the overabundant money supply. This short, but interesting interview, was posted over at spiegel.de yesterday as well...and is Roy's 4th story of the day. The link is here.  Too bad South Africa won't help break the gold price suppression scheme Posted: 20 Mar 2012 09:08 PM PDT  They came on horseback or by foot, trudging through Lesotho's highlands and clutching tattered identity documents to back their claims that South Africa's gold mining firms ruined their lungs. On one day in January alone, around 40 former gold miners and widows crowded into a municipal office in Semongkong, 120 km (80 miles) east of Lesotho's capital. They were there to add their thumbprints to the names of nearly 7,000 others who are threatening the biggest class-action suit Africa has ever seen. |
| With college kids, Bernanke gets away with dissing gold Posted: 20 Mar 2012 09:08 PM PDT  Dow Jones Newswires reports how Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke criticized the gold standard during a lecture yesterday at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. While GATA is not a gold standard advocacy organization, we can only wish that Bernanke would engage this subject where he risked a more informed and critical audience. This is not just because we'd love the chairman to be asked how he squares the Fed's "transparency" campaign with its refusal to provide public access to the central bank's records involving gold...it's also because some of Bernanke's arguments, as reported below, are so pathetic. |
| David Tice: Gold Will Surge To $2,500 And The S&P 500 Will Plunge To 1,000 Posted: 20 Mar 2012 09:08 PM PDT  David Tice, the former chief portfolio strategist for bear markets at Federated Investors, is bearish. His 18-month target for the S&P 500 is 1,000, and he thinks gold is headed to $2,500 within the next two to three years. "We feel just like we did in 1999 and 2007," said Tice "[During] both of those periods, people were positive about credit being created, the central banks were easy, everybody was complacent, and we ended up having a big accident." |
| Charles Kadlec: The rising price of the falling dollar Posted: 20 Mar 2012 09:08 PM PDT  Do you know why oil and prices are moving sharply higher? Some blame the oil companies, charging they are manipulating prices. Others cite U.S. sanctions on Iran and the threat of a military encounter that would disrupt the flow of oil from the Middle East. Speculators too are blamed for ostensibly bidding up the price of oil. In the political arena, President Obama is taking credit for increased domestic oil production even as his critics point out the slow pace of drilling permits issued by his administration soon will hamper additional increases in the U.S. oil production. Yet the basic reason for higher energy prices is being overlooked, even though it is right before our eyes: Oil prices are up because the value of the dollar is down. |
| Great Grandpa And His Silver Dollars Posted: 20 Mar 2012 09:03 PM PDT or How The Government Steals You Blind. by NetRanger of SGTReport:
A short fable about value and wealth. Many years ago there was a man named George Franklin (His friends called him "Frank") who worked hard for his money. He was a machinist. He was highly skilled and highly sought after and, as such, was fairly well off. He and his wife had adequate savings, a nice home, some land, and several children. One day, late in his career, he had an idea. Frank's idea was to take an entire months wages and give it to each of his first two great grandsons. He discussed this with his wife, Tina, and they agreed. Their children were all grown and married with either young children or expecting. It would take a bit of extra saving but nothing the couple couldn't handle. The house was paid for, the kids were raised, the car was old but seldom used. Frank was paid a fairly handsome wage of $2 per day ($10 per week, $40 per month). It was high for a machinist but his skill and accomplishments rewarded him. So, over the next year, he and his wife set aside $80 for the two great grandsons. Read Moe @ SGTReport.com |
| LISTEN: One Hour with Lindsey Williams Posted: 20 Mar 2012 08:58 PM PDT
About Gold Seek Radio: More interviews @ radio.goldseek.com |
| Silver Update: “Silver Doctors” Posted: 20 Mar 2012 08:57 PM PDT from BrotherJohnF: BJF examines a silver doctor article and goes shopping at the Perth, in the 3.20.12 Silver Got Physical ? ~TVR |
| Silver: Banging the Close of the Comex Session Posted: 20 Mar 2012 08:00 PM PDT |
| Trading Comments, 21 March 2012 (posted 009h45 CET): Posted: 20 Mar 2012 07:45 PM PDT The precious metals are still testing support. So far gold has held $1650 and silver has held $32, which are important support levels. That is positive. Gold 1) The position bought at $1,659.10 on |
| The U.S. Dollar & Oil Hold Clues About the Future Posted: 20 Mar 2012 06:18 PM PDT |
| Have Gold, Silver Entered a Bear Market? Posted: 20 Mar 2012 06:09 PM PDT Gold Forecaster |
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